Anomaly by Tonya Kuper (ARC)

Anomaly (Schrodinger's Consortium #1)
Tonya Kuper
Pub.: Nov 25, 2014

Reality is only an illusion.
Except for those who can control it…

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

My first boyfriend dumped me – happy birthday, Josie!- my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening…

Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.

When hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he’s the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead… 

Hmm. Anomaly was just okay for me; didn't love it, didn't hate it. I will say that I enjoyed the geekiness of Josie and the way she could refer to stories like Star Wars and Thor and compare them to the new version of her everyday life. I also liked that her superpower involved pushing and retracting objects in and out of existence. Definitely a cool ability to have. But the storyline of girl with new abilities training and falling for her hot new trainer has become a bit of a bore for me - I've read it too many times already, so it made the story really drag on until the last fifteen percent. She just spent way too much of this novel learning how to push things into reality. I prefer to read about spontaneous conflict, not the manufactured kind to teach a new skill.

 

Give it a go if you like, and so long as you don't go in expecting to be blown away, you'll probably be content enough with Anomaly.  2.5 Dreamcatchers.

ARC provided by Entangled Publishing for honest review.

The Body Electric by Beth Revis (ARC)

The Body Electric
Beth Revis
Pub.: October 6, 2014

The future world is at peace.

Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift—the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother—to help others relive their happy memories.

But not all is at it seems.

Ella starts seeing impossible things—images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience—and influence—the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love—even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…

Someone’s altered her memory.

Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.

So who can she trust?

Ella's life wasn't completely easy. Her father died in a terrorist attack and her mother has an incurable illness that's slowly withering her away. Ella soon learns that her mother's invention - a machine that allows users to relive their happiest memories - no longer works to give her mother peace. So Ella doses herself with an insane amount of nanobots to allow herself to hook up and help her mother through the process. But now her body seems to be able to do things she never should've been able to, like staying underwater for way too long without breathing.

Once the government realizes what Ella can do with her mother's machine, they enlist her help to read the mind of a man they suspect is aiding a terrorist organization. The internal hacking leads Ella to the name of a man who used to work for her father, who is also suspected of leading the terrorist group. But when Ella finally comes face to face and mind to mind with him, she discovers the awful truth - that not only does that man have intimate moments of the two of them together that she can't remember, but that he nor the government leader she's been aiding are what they seem.

 

I really enjoyed Beth Revis' Across the Universe books, so I figured I'd probably really like The Body Electric too. This dystopian society relies heavily on technology to advance their lives, hence the nanobots circulating their systems. Ella thought she had a relatively low number, but soon learns that she has way more than she thought possible without suffering from bot brain, which basically makes your body go kaput. And once she learns it's probably because of her own father's research, her life will never be the same.

Reading through this, there were a few things that were obviously coming, and a few things that actually surprised me - and I'm hard to surprise. I think my one dissapointment was with the ending and its lack of closure on the romance front. It was left in a way that wasn't satisfying for me. These two characters had a past and I would've liked to see them acknowledge it a little more and choose a path before cutting me off, but other than that it was a pretty interesting novel. So if you're into mystery science fiction, this is a pretty good one to pick up.

 

3.5 dreamcatchers.

 

 

ARC provided by Scripturient Books for honest review.

99 Cent Sale!

Now through November 12th, you can pick up all my individually released novels for just 99 little pennies. Snatch 'em up while you can. Some are sweet, some are dark, some are dirty, some are supernatural, and all are sassy. ;)

 

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